News To Smile About

Antibiotics And Cleaning Can Save Teeth

March 29, 1992|By Ron Kotulak and Jon Van.

Acombination of extensive tooth cleaning and antibiotic treatments apparently can save about three-quarters of the teeth that are either treated surgically or extracted by dentists using current techniques to treat advanced gum disease.

This encouraging news was presented at the recent meeting in Boston of the American Association for Dental Research. Dentists from the University of Detroit and the University of Michigan said that aggressive tooth cleaning and antibiotic treatment that included coating teeth with a film containing antibiotics saved the vast majority of teeth in the studies.

Periodontal disease, which can destroy gums and other tissue that supports teeth, is the chief cause of tooth loss in adults.

OPTIMISTS` BODIES RESPOND BETTER TO STRESS Looking on the bright side of life may not always be realistic, but it could be good for your health.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh studied volunteers, half of whom were rated as optimists and half pessimists. Under stressful conditions, scientists found the immune systems of the pessimists became depressed while the immune systems of the optimists were largely unaffected.

VICTIM SURVIVES MASS KILLER BEE ATTACK In what appears to be the first reported mass attack by killer bees, their victim survived, Dr. William McKenna, a Harlingen, Texas, allergist, reported to the American Academy of Allergy and Immunology meeting.

The victim, who received more than 300 stings, fell unconscious from the attack, but was discharged from a hospital after one day.

Killer bees, which migrated into Texas from Mexico two years ago, are much like ordinary honeybees, but they are more easily provoked and tend to repeatedly attack a victim. It is the massive number of stings that can kill. LIGHTS AT NIGHT COULD SET OFF GENETIC ACTIVITY Turning on the kitchen light while preparing a midnight snack could also turn on genetic activity that resets your biological clock, research from Northwestern University suggests.

In experiments where scientists interrupted restful darkness by shining bright lights on hamsters, the researchers were able to document production of proteins by the rodents` genes as a response.

``This is one of the clearest examples relating changes in gene expression to a behavioral event,`` said Joseph Takahashi, Northwestern professor of neurobiology and physiology. Photos of the genetic activity and a report on the experiments were published in the journal Science.

In another study, a Florida State University biologist may have found one reason some people suffer seasonal affective disorder or the ``winter blues.`` This depression associated with lack of light in the winter may be due to an inability to produce sufficient quantities of rhodopsin, a substance found in the retina that absorbs light, said Florida State`s Ted Williams.

Doctors balk at treating AIDS patients

6Nearly half the primary care physicians in Los Angeles County who responded to a survey indicated they won`t treat patients infected with the AIDS virus.

The study by a researcher at the University of California at Riverside found that 36 percent of the doctors surveyed had encountered infected patients and referred them elsewhere.

Another 12 percent of the doctors said they hadn`t yet seen an infected patient but plan to refer him elsewhere once such a patient presents himself. The researcher, Kathleen Montgomery, said her survey found that only 34 percent of primary care physicians are now treating one or more patients infected with the AIDS virus. Earlier studies had suggested that acceptance of infected patients for treatment would be much higher, Montgomery said.